Nourishing Gardens

Our plans and developments for a large heirloom vegetable garden. We are learning the best ways to nourish it and hopefully receive lots of nourishment from it! We live in Virginia in zone 7 and are using bits and pieces from several methods, including square foot gardening and lasagna gardening.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Alright, so here it is the end of June and I am woefully behind and really seriously slacking in the garden dept. This is a picture of the garden at this moment - in DESPERATE need of some weeding! Did I mention that we moved to a brand new spot and hubby wanted a "traditional row garden"? I *really* prefer my square foot/ lasagna bed garden - so much easier! Things are growing in here, among the weeds. We have harvested some peas, lettuce and cucumbers. There are onions, carrots, beets, peppers, chard, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprout, kale, beans, lots of squash, and pumpkin. The corn didn't really come up and the chickens found their way back in - their favorite dust bathing spot is where we planted the corn, so that's a lost cause. The 30 tomato plants that we planted from seed? Well, about 3 of them came up. So, I bought 6 plants at Lowe's and then found a lady on craigslist selling tomato plants for $2 each. She had sold most of them but had some left and said I could just have them for free since they were getting straggly being in containers so long. So, I picked up 20 free tomato plants! :-) I now have 24 plants in the ground doing well and probably at least 18 different varieties - which is tons of fun! Below are pics of the peas, apples, and the fig tree so far this year. I have also harvested some asparagus, and rhubarb and very soon will be picking lots of wild and domestic blackberries.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Tom got the garden tilled Saturday. It is about 24'x36' and we are planting traditional rows this year at Tom's request. I love my lasagna/square foot gardening, but the garden where I have done that in the past is currently occupied by goats, and Tom was feeling nostalgic and wanted to see a traditional row garden, sooo... here we go! Hopefully it will work out well. I am a little nervous since it is a new spot and method I haven't used in years.

Heather planted spinach, lettuce and peas in the L-shaped beds of the small garden on Saturday also. A bit later than usual, but the weather has been irrational lately - frost and 40 for the high and then 80 the next day. They may still do fine.

I used a garden planner software which I found very helpful and less time consuming than my own drawings and spreadsheets. It can be found at this link. I am going to try to figure out how to post a screen shot of my plan here, but haven't yet had time.

This morning, I also tilled up most of the side yard and this evening Will planted grass seed for us! The grass was pretty much gone after the chickens ate away at it all fall and winter. I look forward to some nice green grass. He had such fun running the spreader around - it may not turn out exactly uniform, but he got the job done. :-)

A couple weeks ago, we were given quite a group of thornless blackberries and some black raspberries. We put the blackberries adjacent to the small garden where the others were, and ended up adding some fenced area as the deer had already found them. We planted a long row of raspberries behind the house, running parallel to it and coming up to the clothesline and adjacent to the kiwi arbor. They seem to be doing very well and have not yet been found by deer.

We are going to be on vacation soon for 10 days and I can't wait to come home and see how things have grown. A good friend is house/animal sitting for us and will water the garden and yard too. It will be fun to be surprised by the growth when we return!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

I can't tell when looking out my window - but when I get outside and poke around, there are lots of little green shoots coming up and I have a crocus bloom today! :-) That is so encouraging and I can't wait for spring to really arrive and lots of time to play outdoors.

Monday, April 19, 2010

The spinach, lettuce, beets, chard, peas and kale are growing well. I let the asparagus go to seed again this year without harvesting (though I was very tempted), I will add soil to the bed and plan to harvest next year. We are moving around the front "cold bed" to the side of the house and will fill that with flowers and bushes - to make room for the deck that we hope to build this year!

We are increasing our fruit trees. We now have 2 apple, 2 peach, 2 fig, 2 kiwi, 75+ strawberry, 3 blueberry, 3 domestic blackberry, and a thriving rhubarb which I have already harvested 2 quarts from. We plan to add 2 pear trees to the "orchard" this year. I am very excited about these additions. :-)

I am sad to report that I pretty much killed all our little seedlings. It was just too busy a time to be trying to remember to turn lights on and off and water things daily. I have a few living still, but many, many died a sad, dry, weak death. :-( I haven't taken tally of seeds yet, but may need to buy some plants to make up for the loss. I do plan to put beans in the ground soon - but we had a frost warning last night again, so won't be doing squashes or tomatoes for a bit still. I am waiting on hubby to go get the truckload of manure for me also, so most of the beds aren't quite ready yet.

On the flower side... right now the iris and wild violets are blooming, lilac is almost done, lilies are on their way. There is 1 bud on a rose bush and many plants that have shoots and leaves and growth. The peonies are looking good, hosta are full and lovely, coneflowers filling in, butterfly bush getting tall. Love this time of year!

We have sooooo many projects that need doing this year. Work has been very busy for hubby and it is way past dark when he gets home lately... so we'll see what really gets accomplished. I'll report back again before too long.

We also dug up lots of baby forsythia bushes from under our bush at the corner of the house, so many in fact that we were able to line the back of the house with bushes - that will be pretty next spring!

We received our order of baby chicks yesterday also. We ordered 25 hens (just a mix of brown egg layers) and they sent a free exotic chick also. They are chirping away from their cage in the laundry room. We need to work on adding to the chicken house and making an additional run for them. They will be inside for a few weeks though.